“As a result of our fiscal discipline, the Office of Public Defender has seen a 15 percent increase in funding and a nearly 5 percent increase in staff during my tenure, even while other state agencies have had to tighten their belts and full-time state employment has been reduced by nearly 5,100. It is my hope that the Office of Public Defender will now return its attention to the job it has to do, and the resources already available with which to do it.”

In August, the head of the public defender’s system in Missouri assigned Nixon a case in an ongoing effort to ease the burden on existing public defenders. But the court in Cole County ruled late that month that public defender chief Michael Barrett didn’t have the authority to make such appointments.